Conventionally, in order to increase silence in the interior of an automobile, a sound insulation material or a sound-absorbing material that is made of glass wool, rock wool, porous ceramic, urethane foam, waste cotton, or the like is provided in the vicinity of apparatuses that generate noise in a vehicle. However, from the viewpoint of workability of the sound insulation material or the sound-absorbing material, its influence on the human body, its recyclability, environmental impact, a decrease in its weight, and the like, today, nonwoven fabrics are widely used in these sound insulation materials and sound-absorbing materials. Patent Document 1 (JP2002-161465A) below discloses a sound-absorbing material made of a stacked nonwoven fabric partially including ultra fine fibers.
Also, in recent years, performance and functions of automobiles, electric appliances, and the like have been improved rapidly. In order to control various electronic apparatuses provided in these automobiles and electric appliances, multiple electric wires need to be routed inside the automobiles. Ordinarily, these electric wires are used in the form of a wire harness. Wire harnesses are obtained by assembling a plurality of electric wires in advance into a form required for wiring, and formed by providing the necessary branches and attaching connectors to their terminal ends, for example, and then winding tape-shaped, tube-shaped, or sheet-shaped protection materials around the outer circumference of the electric wire bundle.
A wire harness routed inside a vehicle comes into contact with a vehicle body or other members inside the vehicle due to vibration while the vehicle is moving, and makes noise in some cases. Thus, in some cases, the outer circumference of the wire harness is provided with a buffer material for suppressing noise caused by contact with any other member.